Loading Data with SQL
Last updated
Last updated
This topic describes several ways to load data to OmniSci using SQL commands.
If there is a potential for duplicate entries, and you want to avoid loading duplicate rows, see How can I avoid creating duplicate rows? on the Troubleshooting page.
If a source file uses a reserved word, OmniSci automatically adds an underscore at the end of the reserved word. For example, year
is converted to year_
.
COPY FROM
Use the following syntax for CSV and TSV files:
<file pattern>
must be local on the server. The file pattern can contain wildcards if you want to load multiple files. In addition to CSV, TSV, and TXT files, you can import compressed files in TAR, ZIP, 7-ZIP, RAR, GZIP, BZIP2, or TGZ format.
COPY FROM
appends data from the source into the target table. It does not truncate the table or overwrite existing data.
You can import client-side files (\copy
command in omnisql
) but it is significantly slower. For large files, OmniSci recommends that you first scp
the file to the server, and then issue the COPY command.
OmniSci supports Latin-1 ASCII format and UTF-8. If you want to load data with another encoding (for example, UTF-16), convert the data to UTF-8 before loading it to OmniSci.
Available properties in the optional WITH clause are described in the following table.
By default, the CSV parser assumes one row per line. To import a file with multiple lines in a single field, specify threads = 1
in the WITH
clause.
You can use COPY FROM
to import geo files. You can create the table based on the source file and then load the data:
You can also append data to an existing, predefined table:
Use the following syntax, depending on the file source.
If you are using COPY FROM
to load to an existing table, the field type must match the metadata of the source file. If it does not, COPY FROM
throws an error and does not load the data.
COPY FROM
appends data from the source into the target table. It does not truncate the table or overwrite existing data.
Supported DATE
formats when using COPY FROM
include mm/dd/yyyy
, dd-mmm-yy
, yyyy-mm-dd
, and dd/mmm/yyyy
.
COPY FROM
fails for records with latitude or longitude values that have more than 4 decimal places.
The following WITH
options are available for geo file imports from all sources.
Currently, a manually created geo table can have only one geo column. If it has more than one, import is not performed.
The following file types are supported:
ESRI Shapefile (.shp)
ESRI file geodatabase (.gdb)
GeoJSON (.geojson, .json, .geojson.gz, .json.gz)
KML (.kml, kmz)
File bundles:
.zip
.tar
.tar.gz
.tgz
An ESRI file geodatabase can have multiple layers, and importing it results in the creation of one table for each layer in the file. This behavior differs from that of importing shapefiles, GeoJSON, or KML files, which results in a single table. For more information, see Importing an ESRI File Geodatabase.
The first compatible file (.shp, .gdb, .geojson, .kml) in the bundle is loaded; subfolders are traversed until a compatible file is found. The rest of the contents in the bundle are ignored. If the bundle contains multiple filesets, unpack the file manually and specify it for import.
For more information about importing specific geo file formats, see Importing Geospatial Files.
CSV files containing WKT strings are not considered geo files and should not be parsed with the geo='true'
option. When importing WKT strings from CSV files, you must create the table first. The geo column type and encoding are specified as part of the DDL. For example, for a polygon with no encoding, try the following:
SQLImporter
SQLImporter
is a Java utility run at the command line. It runs a SELECT statement on another database through JDBC and loads the result set into OmniSciDB.
OmniSci recommends that you use a service account with read-only permissions when accessing data from a remote database.
In release 4.6 and higher, the user ID (-u
) and password (-p
) flags are required. If your password includes a special character, you must escape the character using a backslash (\).
If the table does not exist in OmniSciDB, SQLImporter
creates it. If the target table in OmniSciDB does not match the SELECT statement metadata, SQLImporter
fails.
If the truncate flag is used, SQLImporter
truncates the table in OmniSciDB before transferring the data. If the truncate flag is not used, SQLImporter
appends the results of the SQL statement to the target table in OmniSciDB.
The -i
argument provides a path to an initialization file. Each line of the file is sent as a SQL statement to the remote database. You can use -i
to set additional custom parameters before the data is loaded.
The SQLImporter
string is case-sensitive. Incorrect case returns the following:
Error: Could not find or load main class com.mapd.utility.SQLimporter
You can migrate geo data types from a PostgreSQL database. The following table shows the correlation between PostgreSQL/PostGIS geo types and OmniSci geo types.
Other PostgreSQL types, including circle, box, and path, are not supported.
By default, 100,000 records are selected from OmniSciDB. To select a larger number of records, use the LIMIT statement.
StreamInsert
Stream data into OmniSciDB by attaching the StreamInsert program to the end of a data stream. The data stream can be another program printing to standard out, a Kafka endpoint, or any other real-time stream output. You can specify the appropriate batch size, according to the expected stream rates and your insert frequency. The target table must exist before you attempt to stream data into the table.
For more information on creating regex transformation statements, see RegEx Replace.
You can use the SQL COPY FROM
statement to import files stored on Amazon Web Services Simple Storage Service (AWS S3) into a OmniSci table, in much the same way you would with local files. In the WITH
clause, specify the S3 credentials and region information of the bucket accessed.
Access key, secret key, and region are required. For information about AWS S3 credentials, see https://docs.aws.amazon.com/general/latest/gr/aws-sec-cred-types.html#access-keys-and-secret-access-keys.
OmniSci does not support the use of asterisks (*) in URL strings to import items. To import multiple files, pass in an S3 path instead of a file name, and COPY FROM
imports all items in that path and any subpath.
OmniSci supports custom S3 endpoints, which allows you to import data from S3-compatible services, such as Google Cloud Storage.
To use custom S3 endpoints, add s3_endpoint
to the WITH
clause of a COPY FROM
statement; for example:
For information about interoperability and setup for Google Cloud Services, see Cloud Storage Interoperability.
You can also configure custom S3 enpoints by passing the s3_endpoint
field to Thrift import_table
.
The following examples show failed and successful attempts to copy the table trips from AWS S3.
The following example imports all the files in the trip.compressed
directory.
The table trips
is created with the following statement:
You can ingest data from an existing Kafka producer to an existing table in OmniSci using KafkaImporter
on the command line:
KafkaImporter
requires a functioning Kafka cluster. See the Kafka website and the Confluent schema registry documentation.
Configure KafkaImporter
to use your target table. KafkaImporter
listens to a pre-defined Kafka topic associated with your table. You must create the table before using the KafkaImporter
utility. For example, you might have a table named customer_site_visit_events
that listens to a topic named customer_site_visit_events_topic
.
The data format must be a record-level format supported by OmniSci.
KafkaImporter
listens to the topic, validates records against the target schema, and ingests topic batches of your designated size to the target table. Rejected records use the existing reject reporting mechanism. You can start, shut down, and configure KafkaImporter
independent of the OmniSciDB engine. If KafkaImporter is running and the database shuts down, KafkaImporter shuts down as well. Reads from the topic are nondestructive.
KafkaImporter
is not responsible for event ordering; a streaming platform outside OmniSci (for example, Spark streaming, flink) should handle the stream processing. OmniSci ingests the end-state stream of post-processed events.
KafkaImporter
does not handle dynamic schema creation on first ingest, but must be configured with a specific target table (and its schema) as the basis. There is a 1:1 correspondence between target table and topic.
StreamImporter is an updated version of the StreamInsert utility used for streaming reads from delimited files into OmniSciDB. StreamImporter uses a binary columnar load path, providing improved performance compared to StreamInsert.
You can ingest data from a data stream to an existing table in OmniSci using StreamImporter
on the command line.
Configure StreamImporter
to use your target table. StreamImporter
listens to a pre-defined data stream associated with your table. You must create the table before using the StreamImporter
utility.
The data format must be a record-level format supported by OmniSci.
StreamImporter
listens to the stream, validates records against the target schema, and ingests batches of your designated size to the target table. Rejected records use the existing reject reporting mechanism. You can start, shut down, and configure StreamImporter
independent of the OmniSciDB engine. If StreamImporter is running but the database shuts down, StreamImporter shuts down as well. Reads from the stream are non-destructive.
StreamImporter
is not responsible for event ordering - a first class streaming platform outside OmniSci (for example, Spark streaming, flink) should handle the stream processing. OmniSci ingests the end-state stream of post-processed events.
StreamImporter
does not handle dynamic schema creation on first ingest, but must be configured with a specific target table (and its schema) as the basis.
There is a 1:1 correspondence between target table and a stream record.
You can consume a CSV or Parquet file residing in HDFS (Hadoop Distributed File System) into OmniSciDB.
Copy the OmniSci JDBC driver into the Apache Sqoop library, normally found at /usr/lib/sqoop/lib/.
The following is a straightforward import command. For more information on options and parameters for using Apache Sqoop, see the user guide at sqoop.apache.org.
The --connect
parameter is the address of a valid JDBC port on your OmniSci instance.
To detect duplication prior to loading data into OmniSciDB, you can perform the following steps. For this example, the files are labeled A,B,C...Z.
Load file A into table MYTABLE
.
Run the following query.
There should be no rows returned; if rows are returned, your first A file is not unique.
Load file B into table TEMPTABLE
.
Run the following query.
There should be no rows returned if file B is unique. Fix B if the information is not unique using details from the selection.
Load the fixed B file into MYFILE
.
Drop table TEMPTABLE
.
Repeat steps 3-6 for the rest of the set for each file prior to loading the data to the real MYTABLE
instance.
Parameter
Description
Default Value
array_delimiter
A single-character string for the delimiter between input values contained within an array.
,
(comma)
array_marker
A two-character string consisting of the start and end characters surrounding an array.
{ }
(curly brackets). For example, data to be inserted into a table with a string array in the second column (for example, BOOLEAN, STRING[], INTEGER
) can be written as true,{value1,value2,value3},3
buffer_size
Size of the input file buffer, in bytes.
8388608
delimiter
A single-character string for the delimiter between input fields; most commonly:
,
for CSV files
\t
for tab-delimited files
Other delimiters include |
,~
, ^
, and;
.
Note: OmniSci does not use file extensions to determine the delimiter.
','
(CSV file)
escape
A single-character string for escaping quotes.
'"'
(double quote)
header
Either 'true'
or 'false'
, indicating whether the input file has a header line in Line 1 that should be skipped.
'true'
line_delimiter
A single-character string for terminating each line.
'\n'
lonlat
In OmniSci, POINT fields require longitude before latitude. Use this parameter based on the order of longitude and latitude in your source data.
'true'
max_reject
Number of records that the COPY statement allows to be rejected before terminating the COPY command. Records can be rejected for a number of reasons, including invalid content in a field, or an incorrect number of columns. The details of the rejected records are reported in the ERROR log. COPY returns a message identifying how many records are rejected. The records that are not rejected are inserted into the table, even if the COPY stops because the max_reject
count is reached.
Note: If you run the COPY command from OmniSci Immerse, the COPY command does not return messages to Immerse once the SQL is verified. Immerse does not show messages about data loading, or about data-quality issues that result in max_reject
triggers.
100,000
nulls
A string pattern indicating that a field is NULL.
An empty string, 'NA'
, or \N
parquet
Import data in Parquet format. Parquet files can be compressed using Snappy. Other archives such as .gz or .zip must be unarchived before you import the data.
'false'
plain_text
Indicates that the input file is plain text so that it bypasses the libarchive
decompression utility.
CSV, TSV, and TXT are handled as plain text.
quote
A single-character string for quoting a field.
"
(double quote). All characters inside quotes are imported “as is,” except for line delimiters.
quoted
Either 'true'
or 'false'
, indicating whether the input file contains quoted fields.
'true'
threads
Number of threads for performing the data import.
Number of CPU cores on the system
Source
Syntax
Local server
COPY [tableName] FROM '/
filepath
' WITH (geo='true', ...)
;
Web site
COPY [tableName] FROM '[
http
`
_
https_
]://_
website/filepath_
' WITH (geo='true', ...);`
Amazon S3
COPY [tableName] FROM 's3://
bucket/filepath
' WITH (geo='true', s3_region='
region
', s3_access_key='
accesskey
', s3_secret_key='
secretkey
', ... );
Parameter
Description
Default Value
geo_assign_render_groups
Enable or disable automatic render group assignment for polygon imports; can be true
or false
. If polygons are not needed for rendering, set this to false
to speed up import.
true
geo_coords_type
Coordinate type used; must be geography
.
N/A
geo_coords_encoding
Coordinates encoding; can be geoint(32)
or none
.
geoint(32)
geo_coords_srid
Coordinates spatial reference; must be 4326
(WGS84 longitude/latitude).
N/A
geo_explode_collections
Explodes MULTIPOLYGON, MULTILINESTRING, or MULTIPOINT geo data into multiple rows in a POLYGON, LINESTRING, or POINT column, with all other columns duplicated.
When importing from a WKT CSV with a MULTIPOLYGON column, the table must have been manually created with a POLYGON column. Similarly, a MULTILINESTRING column must be created with LINESTRING, and a MULTIPOINT column must be created with POINT. Storing MULTILINESTRING or MULTIPOINT directly is not supported, but can be exploded into a LINESTRING or POINT column.
When importing from a geo file, the table is automatically created with the correct type of column.
When the input column contains a mixture of MULTI and single geo, the MULTI geo are exploded, but the singles are imported normally. For example, a column containing five two-polygon MULTIPOLYGON rows and five POLYGON rows imports as a POLYGON column of fifteen rows.
false
PostgreSQL/PostGIS Type
OmniSci Type
point
point
lseg
linestring
linestring
linestring
polygon
polygon
multipolygon
multipolygon
Setting
Default
Description
<table_name>
n/a
Name of the target table in OmniSci
<database_name>
n/a
Name of the target database in OmniSci
-u
n/a
User name
-p
n/a
User password
--host
n/a
Name of OmniSci host
--delim
comma (,)
Field delimiter, in single quotes
--line
newline (\n)
Line delimiter, in single quotes
--batch
10000
Number of records in a batch
--retry_count
10
Number of attempts before job fails
--retry_wait
5
Wait time in seconds after server connection failure
--null
n/a
String that represents null values
--port
6274
Port number for OmniSciDB on localhost
`-t
--transform`
n/a
Regex transformation
--print_error
False
Print error messages
--print_transform
False
Print description of transform.
--help
n/a
List options
Setting
Default
Description
<table_name>
n/a
Name of the target table in OmniSci
<database_name>
n/a
Name of the target database in OmniSci
-u <username>
n/a
User name
-p <password>
n/a
User password
--host <hostname>
localhost
Name of OmniSci host
--port <port_number>
6274
Port number for OmniSciDB on localhost
--http
n/a
Use HTTP transport
--https
n/a
Use HTTPS transport
--skip-verify
n/a
Do not verify validity of SSL certificate
--ca-cert <path>
n/a
Path to the trusted server certificate; initiates an encrypted connection
--delim <delimiter>
comma (,)
Field delimiter, in single quotes
--line <delimiter>
newline (\n)
Line delimiter, in single quotes
--batch <batch_size>
10000
Number of records in a batch
--retry_count <retry_number>
10
Number of attempts before job fails
--retry_wait <seconds>
5
Wait time in seconds after server connection failure
--null <string>
n/a
String that represents null values
--quoted <boolean>
false
Whether the source contains quoted fields
`-t
--transform`
n/a
Regex transformation
--print_error
false
Print error messages
--print_transform
false
Print description of transform
--help
n/a
List options
--group-id <id>
n/a
Kafka group ID
--topic <topic>
n/a
The Kafka topic to be ingested
--brokers <broker_name:broker_port>
localhost:6273
One or more brokers
KafkaImporter Logging Options
Setting
Default
Description
--log-directory <directory>
mapd_log
Logging directory; can be relative to data directory or absolute
--log-file-name <filename>
n/a
Log filename relative to logging directory; has format KafkaImporter.{SEVERITY}.%Y%m%d-%H%M%S.log
--log-symlink <symlink>
n/a
Symlink to active log; has format KafkaImporter.{SEVERITY}
--log-severity <level>
INFO
Log-to-file severity level: INFO, WARNING, ERROR, or FATAL
--log-severity-clog <level>
ERROR
Log-to-console severity level: INFO, WARNING, ERROR, or FATAL
--log-channels
n/a
Log channel debug info
--log-auto-flush
n/a
Flush logging buffer to file after each message
--log-max-files <files_number>
100
Maximum number of log files to keep
--log-min-free-space <bytes>
20,971,520
Minimum number of bytes available on the device before oldest log files are deleted
--log-rotate-daily
1
Start new log files at midnight
--log-rotation-size <bytes>
10485760
Maximum file size, in bytes, before new log files are created
Setting
Default
Description
<table_name>
n/a
Name of the target table in OmniSci
<database_name>
n/a
Name of the target database in OmniSci
-u <username>
n/a
User name
-p <password>
n/a
User password
--host <hostname>
n/a
Name of OmniSci host
--port <port>
6274
Port number for OmniSciDB on localhost
--http
n/a
Use HTTP transport
--https
n/a
Use HTTPS transport
--skip-verify
n/a
Do not verify validity of SSL certificate
--ca-cert <path>
n/a
Path to the trusted server certificate; initiates an encrypted connection
--delim <delimiter>
comma (,)
Field delimiter, in single quotes
--null <string>
n/a
String that represents null values
--line <delimiter>
newline (\n)
Line delimiter, in single quotes
--quoted <boolean>
true
Either true
or false
, indicating whether the input file contains quoted fields.
--batch <number>
10000
Number of records in a batch
--retry_count <retry_number>
10
Number of attempts before job fails
--retry_wait <seconds>
5
Wait time in seconds after server connection failure
`-t
--transform`
n/a
Regex transformation
--print_error
false
Print error messages
--print_transform
false
Print description of transform
--help
n/a
List options
Setting
Default
Description
--log-directory <directory>
mapd_log
Logging directory; can be relative to data directory or absolute
--log-file-name <filename>
n/a
Log filename relative to logging directory; has format StreamImporter.{SEVERITY}.%Y%m%d-%H%M%S.log
--log-symlink <symlink>
n/a
Symlink to active log; has format StreamImporter.{SEVERITY}
--log-severity <level>
INFO
Log-to-file severity level: INFO, WARNING, ERROR, or FATAL
--log-severity-clog <level>
ERROR
Log-to-console severity level: INFO, WARNING, ERROR, or FATAL
--log-channels
n/a
Log channel debug info
--log-auto-flush
n/a
Flush logging buffer to file after each message
--log-max-files <files_number>
100
Maximum number of log files to keep
--log-min-free-space <bytes>
20,971,520
Minimum number of bytes available on the device before oldest log files are deleted
--log-rotate-daily
1
Start new log files at midnight
--log-rotation-size <bytes>
10485760
Maximum file size, in bytes, before new log files are created